It’s already interesting as is, so your job is half done. You don’t have to struggle to make it interesting. That’s what I mean by removing interesting. Unless you are writing an alternate history or post-apocalyptic situation, you pretty much know what to expect from a city. Now, NYC is an interesting city, by all means, but it is still just that: a city on Earth. Let’s say you have a story set in New York City. On the other hand, if you drop the interesting out of the setting, you don’t necessarily wind up with a flat story unless you are writing fantasy or science fiction. If you drop it from both, then why are you even writing? If you take the interesting out of the plot, you will wind up with interesting characters doing something boring, and that’s no good either. Boring characters can’t elicit an emotional response, so your entire world will fall flat. Let me ask you: if you drop ‘interesting’ in any of the parts of the sentence above, do you lose the story? Well, if you drop it out of characters, you will wind up with boring characters.

Simply put, a story is a bunch of interesting characters involved in an interesting plot, raising a certain level of emotional response in the reader, while everything is taking place in an interesting setting. Even in a milieu story, where the setting is important, you must never forget the other components of a complete story.

Now, is your story the same as your world? The answer is no. Chapter One: Geography and Natural ResourcesĬhapter One: Geography and Natural Resources.

Fantasy country map creator